The Lonely Position of Neutral
by A Kiss Before Dying
Summary: There's always someone whose life is worse than yours. He just didn't think he'd find her that quickly. Post-shootout, Jack lives. M for language and later chapters. HIATUS - SEE PROFILE
1. The Illusion of Progress

**Chapter 1:** The Illusion of Progress

_Who is gonna save you when I'm gone?  
__And who'll watch over you?  
__Who will give you strength when you're not strong?  
__Who will watch over you when I've gone away?_

"Shit…"

Jenna lashed a hand out towards the volume on the radio, cutting off the song in mid-melody. She glared at the car's stereo for a moment longer, as if it were the cause of all her pain and misery. Perhaps it could go on the ever-growing list of things that were.

As she wiped away any lingering tears from her cheeks, Jenna took note to never wear mascara the next time she felt a bad day creeping up on her. At the moment, more makeup was smeared across the backs of her hands than was actually on her face.

Bad days, however, weren't so hard to predict. Not in the way her life was going, anyway.

Choking back a frustrated scream, Jenna rested her head against the steering wheel in an imitation of defeat. Strands of black hair tumbled from their loose ponytail and fell around her face, casting shadows over shadows that already haunted her pale features. Sharp green eyes glared at her feet as Jenna tried to consider what her next move would be.

To an outsider, she knew what she looked like: some strung-out whore, cruising the streets of Detroit looking for a good time and a better place to throw her life away. The weed on the passenger seat didn't help, either.

The weed. Jenna swore again. Reaching over, she grabbed the small bag that held everything she knew was wrong with her and threw it angrily out the open window. It landed on the sidewalk, and Jenna gave the package another half hour before it was either eaten by a stray dog or sold to another desperate, pathetic nobody.

Predictably, this didn't make her feel any better. Chucking twenty bucks out the window—quite literally, in her case—had that effect on some people.

Reluctantly, Jenna gave the package another glance from the corner of her eye before deciding against retrieving it. She knew all too well where it would go, and doing that would only ruin her choice to get sober—a decision that had been made only a minute or two before, when the weed had flown out the car window.

Progress, indeed.

The second decision Jenna made in that moment was coming to the conclusion that she had had enough of staring at the same slab of concrete and durasteel for well over an hour. Said hole in the wall was otherwise known as her dead-end job, and said dead-end job was no longer _her _job.

As much as she wanted it to, glaring at the dirty glass windows that read "JZ's Thrift Store" in scrawling graffiti art wouldn't get her position back from the sorry bastard who—according to JZ, the store manager—deserved it more than she did.

Turning the keys in the ignition with more force than she intended, Jenna pulled away from the side of the road and started to drive. She didn't care where. The destination didn't matter; what did was doing something besides smoking to stop her mind from thinking about how shitty her day was.

But she wasn't a complainer; people like Jenna never were. Jenna's mother hadn't been, not even when her husband left for a prettier, richer, blonder woman. Granted, Jenna's father never complained about making that choice, either, but who would?

You don't complain when you're lucky; and if you do when you're not, well. There was always something you could do about it, because Newton's first law prevented you from falling any further once you've reached rock bottom.

So Jenna never complained. At least not out loud. Inside, she was screaming.

Pulling her white Buick off the main road, Jenna turned down a small, well-furnished street that seemed friendlier than most other areas in downtown Detroit. The neighborhood was quiet, the houses lining both sides of the road quaint and welcoming. Such a district resembled all too well the life she once had before that, too, had been taken away from her. Jenna smiled sadly, turning her attention back to the road; recalling such memories wouldn't help her now.

She had just rounded the corner onto the next street when the shooting started. The whole scene seemed to unfold before her eyes in slow motion, and Jenna slammed on her brakes, coming to an abrupt halt in front of the last house on the lane.

As she twisted around in her seat to get a better view of what was happening, she noticed a man in a beanie and long-sleeved shirt dashing out the front door and onto the lawn. He was carrying a shotgun, and he shouted someone's name before firing a round into the chest of a masked figure standing on the sidewalk.

For a moment, Jenna couldn't wrap her mind around it; how could this be happening? Obviously she shouldn't have judged the neighborhood by its friendly appearance. Despite having lived in Detroit the majority of her life, Jenna had never witnessed a shootout, and watching 'Cops' on TV didn't justify seeing it in real life, not by a long shot.

The man on the receiving end of the shotgun blast crumpled to the ground, and faintly, Jenna noticed someone else—a boy, younger than the others—gradually stand up and stumble for the house. With a numb sense of curiosity, she wondered what he had been doing outside lying on the ground, and why he was clutching his left shoulder with a grimace of pain.

Suddenly, none of that mattered to her anymore; a van flew around the corner ahead of her and came to a screeching halt in front of the house, and several more men, masked and armed, jumped from the doors and on to the street. Immediately they started firing, and the boy Jenna had seen struggle to his feet tumbled to the ground again with a scream.

"Oh my God." Jenna's trembling voice betrayed any first attempts to remain calm. Seeing the boy, who could not have been much older than her, get shot in front of her eyes scared Jenna into a disgusting, ironic sense of reality.

Only ten minutes before she had been complaining about losing a job and smoking too much; now it seemed she had everything to lose.

The man who ran out onto the lawn attempted to approach the fallen boy, but was forced back inside as gunfire came at him from all directions. The attackers, seeking shelter along the flanks of the van, were brutal and relentless; the siding and windows of the house shattered, exploding inward upon the impact of the bullets.

Stuck in the middle of the fight, Jenna was frozen to the spot, unsure of what to do; run and draw attention to herself, or wait out the shooting and try to help the boy?

Suddenly, a stray stream of bullets glanced off the windshield of her car. Jenna screamed, ducking her head below the steering wheel to avoid being struck. When the echoing gunshots directed towards her car died away, she cautiously peeked her head above the dashboard. Upon seeing the bullet holes and cracks spiderwebbing their way across the glass, Jenna's mind brought her back up to speed, and she decided to get the hell out of the neighborhood. Fast.

Her trembling hands finally found the clutch, and she threw the Buick into reverse. Twisting around in her seat to see the road behind her, she failed to notice the two cars flying towards her from the front.

The van that had dropped off the shooters was now heading towards two men wrestling in the front yard; and the second, unseen to anyone else, was careening towards it, intent on intercepting its path.

The two vans collided with the sound of screeching metal. Jenna, startled, turned around to see what had happened; both cars came hurtling towards the front end of her Buick, and she had no time to get out of the way.

The impact from the van shattered what remained of the car's windshield; even with her seatbelt on, the force of the collision jerked Jenna forward, and her head struck with a sickening crack against the steering wheel.

For a moment, her vision faded; Jenna felt blood trickle its way slowly down her forehead, and she struggled to lift her head up, wincing as she ran a hand over her face to assess her injuries.

The noises and commotion she heard outside all blended together in a blur of activity, and when she finally came to, she heard a voice—the man in the beanie, she knew, recognizing his tone from when he called out someone's name earlier—shout a single, chilling phrase:

"…Thank Victor Sweet!"

Jenna's clouded mind couldn't understand what was so sweet about the current situation. At that moment, however, a harsh, echoing _crack_ resounded from the direction of the voice, and as the sound of the gunshot faded away, an eerie stillness fell over the scene of the shootout.

Jenna lifted her bloodied forehead from the steering wheel. What her shattered windshield could have revealed was otherwise foggy and out of focus; the blow to her head left her feeling disoriented. She thought she might throw up.

Then several voices started screaming at once, and although she still struggled to get a grip on her own consciousness, the terror and pain in those voices shook Jenna to her core.

"Jack!"

"We need an ambulance!"

"_Jack!_ Jack, look at me—"

"Someone call 9-1-1!"

Jenna didn't know whose name they were screaming, but it wasn't hers. She was going to die before anyone noticed her, and for some reason, that was okay; she didn't want these people knowing she had come to their neighborhood looking for a little piece of happiness.

The last thing Jenna thought before the darkness took her was how she wished she hadn't wondered how her shitty day could have been any worse.

* * *

Bobby Mercer had never been a fan of fairy tales, but he knew one thing for certain: fairies weren't supposed to die.

They just weren't; fairies couldn't die, because they were always supposed to be there, even if you couldn't always see them.

Bobby didn't remember why he had been yelling at Jerry; he didn't remember the knock at the door; he didn't even remember shooting at Victor Sweet's goons on his mother's front yard.

All he could remember was calling his little brother's name as he watched Jack stumble to the pavement, blood from the bullet hole in his chest already soaking his white shirt.

In that instant, Bobby swore that pointing a gun at his little brother and making him bleed would be the last mistake the masked men would ever make. That rage and anguish was the only thing giving him the strength to survive, to pump off a few more rounds into the bodies of the assholes that murdered his family.

And, in an instant, it was over.

Bobby stumbled to his feet, glancing around frantically for his brothers. Angel, who had pulled him away from the oncoming van, was sprawled awkwardly in the snow; Jerry, still reeling from the collision of his van against the car that had originally targeted Bobby, was slumped over in the driver's seat; and Jack—

The blood in Bobby's veins went cold as his eyes finally took in the sight of his youngest brother lying in the yard a few feet from Evelyn's house, blood staining the surrounding snow.

Bobby dashed across the road, nearly tripping several times in his haste to get to Jack. He heard himself yelling his brother's name over and over as he fell to his feet, kneeling over Jack's shuddering form.

"Jack! Jack, look at me… don't you die on me, you little fairy—"

Angel ran up from behind him, halted at the sight of Jack's bloody clothing, and screamed, "Someone call 9-1-1!" He glanced up as Sofi came running from the house, cell phone in hand, and the three stood watch over Jack like a silent vigil.

Across the road, Jerry wrestled his way free from the debris, and he stumbled from the curb back over to his wrecked van. Still trembling from the adrenaline rush of the shootout, Jerry put his hands over his head, still shocked at what he did to protect his brothers.

Stabbing strangers, ramming the family van into oncoming vehicles… that wasn't like him. That wasn't Jeremiah Mercer; at least, it wasn't supposed to be, not today. His mind played with different scenarios and how to explain the events to his wife when Camille and the girls found out what happened in grandma's yard.

As he turned to walk away from the wreckage, Jerry noticed a third vehicle caught in the crash he had caused. A Buick, its side smashed in from the impact, had been crushed between the two vans. Jerry approached the white car, squinting to get a better look inside. What he saw alarmed him.

"Bobby!" he called, glancing from his eldest brother to the mangled mess of cars in front of him. "Bobby, there's someone else here!"

"Blow his fucking brains out, Jerry!" Bobby shouted, Jack still lying limp in his arms. "Kill every last one of the motherfuckers!"

"Bobby… shit, it's some girl!" Examining the unidentified car more closely, Jerry finally spotted Jenna, slumped unconscious over the steering wheel.

"Goddammit Jerry, so fucking what?" Bobby whirled on the younger Mercer, furious that Jeremiah hadn't dealt with the unidentified female already.

Jerry kept the fact that he thought his older brother was losing his mind to himself. Ignoring Bobby's demands that he simply kill her and be done with it, he approached the smashed Buick cautiously, peering through the remains of the nonexistent windshield.

After he was sure the girl was unconscious and had not been wielding any sort of weapon, Jerry yanked the passenger door open and crawled inside, hoisting her from her seat. He pulled her from the wreckage and set her down in the grass next to the side of the road.

His actions did not go unnoticed by Bobby. Leaving Jack with Angel and Sofi, he stalked over to the unmoving body of the girl Jerry had pulled from the white car. Pistol clenched in his trembling hand, Bobby shoved Jerry aside and pointed the gun down at her.

"Get up," he hissed through clenched teeth. The girl didn't move.

"I said get up, motherfucker!" Furious, Bobby's booted foot shot out, catching her sharply in the side with enough force to turn her over onto her side. The girl still hadn't stirred, and Bobby leveled his pistol to her head.

"Bobby, stop it!" Sofi screamed, her annoying accent drilling holes in Bobby's brain. He closed his eyes, clenching the gun tighter in his hands before lowering it. "Fine; fuck it. You wanna leave one of Sweet's goons alive? Suit yourself."

"Bobby, I don't think she's with Sweet," Jerry stated quietly.

"Like hell she isn't," Bobby spat, turning on his brother. "Why else would she be here?"

"Dammit, Bobby, think about it—"

A sputtering cough interrupted their argument and his finger paused on the trigger. "Bobby…"

The eldest Mercer brother dropped everything the instant Jack said his name. Pushing his way past Jerry, Bobby ran to kneel next to Angel at Jack's side.

"Hey, fairy," he whispered with a forced smile, voice cracking as he struggled to keep his emotions in check. "How you holding out?"

Jack lifted a trembling, bloodied hand out in front of his face, examining it with a painful grimace. "I'm bleeding…" The fact seemed to startle him, and he turned to Bobby with wide eyes, panicking. "Oh God, Bobby…"

"It's nothing, kiddo… you're going to be fine, I promise." Bobby turned to face Angel. "Where are the fucking cops?"

"They're coming, Bobby; Sofi called them." Angel's eyes, as blank as his face, were still fixated on Jack, as if he couldn't believe what had happened—what still might happen to his youngest brother. Kneeling next to him, Sofi wrapped her arms tighter around Angel's neck, crying silently into his shoulder.

Suddenly, Jack's back arched in another painful spasm, and he began violently coughing up blood. His hands clawed at his shirt, as if trying to tear away everything that was slowly beginning to kill him.

Bobby reached over, grasping Jack's hand so tightly his knuckles turned white. "Hang in there, Jack, everything's going to be okay…" He choked on his own words as several tears fell, unbidden across his cheeks.

_Not now… Christ, don't let him go now… I can't watch over him if he's not here._

The high-pitched whine of sirens drowned out any other thoughts, and the three Mercer brothers looked up to see an ambulance approaching from down the road, followed closely by a squad of police cars.

To Bobby, everything else seemed to go by in a muddled blur of events. Green and Fowler were the first cops to examine the scene, and Angel described the events to the pair as paramedics took care of Jack.

Green, after directing the crime scene investigators to examine and bag the bodies of the shooters, approached the remaining Mercers to discuss what had happened.

"Hold up," Jerry stated, interrupting the police sergeant. "There's someone else… she needs help."

Green turned, and Jerry motioned to Jenna's seemingly lifeless body on the sidewalk. Jerry had draped his coat over her torso, as she had begun shivering, yet still remained unconscious. Bobby had instructed him to simply leave her for dead, but as always, Jerry ignored him.

Green seemed surprised at the revelation of a second victim. "Who is she?"

Jerry shrugged, rubbing his neck uncomfortably. "I don't know… some girl. I think she got caught up in the shootout, but Bobby feels otherwise."

Green seemed to agree. Without hesitation, he turned and called over two units overseeing Jack in the back of the ambulance. "Load her onto the ambulance with the boy… quickly!"

The med units obeyed, carefully loading Jenna's unconscious body onto a stretcher and carried her over to the ambulance. No one noticed she was gone.

Green and Fowler sat the remaining Mercer brothers and Sofi down on the front porch—scattered with broken glass and debris from the house—to get the situation sorted out, but Bobby hardly heard a word Green was saying. His attention was focused on the retreating ambulance that wailed around the corner and out of sight, carrying away the one thing left in the world he cared about most.


	2. Second Chance

**Chapter 2: **Second Chance

_She checks her pulse,  
Gotta know if her heart's still beating  
And the hospital's not far  
If anything should happen here_

When she finally woke up, Jenna could have sworn she was in an insane asylum.

Off-white walls closed in on her from all sides, and bandages were wrapped tightly around her forehead and chest. Puzzled and feeling slightly disoriented, Jenna lifted an arm to tear them off, and found a small tag encircling her wrist. Squinting, she examined it closely; her full name—how had they gotten her personal information?—was printed neatly across the top, alongside a cascade of numbers and other seemingly useless information.

Suddenly, the scattered pieces of her memory clicked back into place, and Jenna remembered everything—losing her job, the weed, aimlessly driving around until she came across a local neighborhood shootout…

She grimaced. Perhaps some things were better off forgotten. Still, she recalled the events that had seemed to unfold so rapidly in front of her eyes—watching in horror as the boy had been shot down in front of her eyes, and then, when she had tried to leave, getting hit by the two oncoming vans.

Closing her eyes at the onslaught of painful memories, Jenna concluded that she was, unfortunately, not in an asylum, but rather a hospital. The tubes sticking into her arms and the cheerful scenery adorning the walls around her gave that much away. Pushing her black bangs aside, Jenna ran her fingers tenderly over the wound of her forehead, wincing when the simple motion caused her pain. She glanced down at the bandages encircling her ribs, not recalling how she had received the wound—it almost felt as if someone had kicked her in the side.

Almost involuntarily, Jenna's thoughts drifted to the boy she saw get shot, and she wondered if he had been killed during the shootout. Oddly, she found herself almost wishing he was okay; like her, he had simply been caught in the middle of a feud that had nothing to do with either of them. She then wondered about the other man who had shot at the boy's attackers in an attempt to keep him from harm's way. Perhaps he was the boy's father, friend or older brother.

Jenna found herself unconsciously wishing someone had fought that hard to protect her from getting shot. After a moment's consideration, she shook her head vigorously to rid herself of such wishful thinking. Ironically, the motion only made her throbbing head hurt even more.

Sighing, Jenna laid back and closed her eyes, but no sooner had she tried to get comfortable than she heard a knock at her door. She glanced over as two people stepped inside and moved toward her bedside.

The first man approached her with a gentle smile, holding out an arm as he introduced himself. "Hello, Ms. Sharpe, my name is Sergeant Green of the Detroit police, and this is my partner, Detective Fowler." He motioned to the man lurking behind him. "How are you feeling?"

"Hi." Jenna's voice cracked as she shook Green's hand weakly. "I'm feeling fine, thank you."

Jenna suddenly realized that she had never lied to a police officer before. Best not to start now. Luckily, Green didn't seem to notice. "We're here on behalf of the Mercer brothers and the shootout that occurred in front of their house yesterday afternoon. Do you mind answering a few questions for us?"

Had it only been yesterday? It felt like weeks to Jenna. She shook her head, more gently this time. "No, I don't mind."

Green nodded, and behind him, Fowler pulled out a small pad of paper to write down her answers. Jenna noticed with a slightly uncomfortable air that she was about to be interrogated; Detroit police officers obviously weren't very good at picking the right moments for asking questions.

"Ms. Sharpe, can you tell me what you were doing yesterday in the neighborhood the Mercers reside in?"

Honesty, as Jenna always heard, was the best policy. "I had just been fired from my job—"

"What was the place of employment?" Fowler cut her off sharply, and Jenna bristled at the coldness in his eyes.

"JZ's… a thrift store, downtown."

Fowler arched his eyebrows before scribbling the name on his notepad. His condescending response did not go unnoticed by Jenna; feeling less and less cooperative, she finished her sentence through clenched teeth. "I got fired from JZ's and was driving around to blow off some steam. That's the only reason I wound up there; I didn't know anybody from the neighborhood."

Fowler looked up at her again, the coldness in his face lingering. "How convenient," he sneered under his breath, before asking, "And why had you been fired?"

"I don't think that information is necessary, Fowler," Green stated quietly.

Jenna almost laughed at the "good cop, bad cop" ploy, but was grateful all the same for not having to answer Fowler's question. Last she heard, weed didn't sit well with cops, even if she had decided to quit cold turkey. Besides, she sensed an underlying animosity between the two, and decided not to see how far it could be pushed; instead, she waited patiently for the next barrage of questions.

"So you do not know any of the Mercer brothers?" Green asked her next.

"No, sir."

"And you did not recognize any of the men who opened fire on them?"

Jenna found the question odd. "As far as I could see, they were wearing masks… so no, I didn't."

Fowler chuckled darkly again. "You're real cute, kid."

Green shot him a warning glance, and Jenna bit back a sharp retort against Fowler's statement. She was beginning to wonder how large the stick shoved up his ass was, and who exactly had had the nerve to put it up there.

Green was apparently just as tired of Fowler's snide comments as Jenna was. "That will be all, Ms. Sharpe, thank you," he said with a forced smile. "We appreciate your cooperation, and I wish you a full recovery."

Before Jenna could thank him and send he and his pessimistic partner on their merry ways, Green continued, "Before we leave, there is one more person I'd like you to speak with."

Puzzled, Jenna wondered who it could be; she doubted her mother would have bothered to drive down to Detroit to check on her, and certainly not her father—

The door opened again, and Jenna's thoughts were cut off as Green said, "Jenna, this is Bobby Mercer, the eldest of the four brothers."

Jenna recognized him immediately as the man in the beanie who had shot at the masked stranger on his front lawn. As Bobby entered the room, the lighting illuminated pale, unshaven features and dark rings encircling eyes that looked as though they hadn't had a good night's rest. His hair, once pulled back slick and straight, now hung in lank strands in front of his tired eyes. He looked as bad as Jenna felt.

Bobby stepped around Green and Fowler—a motion that suggested he harbored a barely-concealed dislike for the two men—as Green introduced him. "Bobby, this is Jenna Sharpe. She was the woman in the car that Jeremiah's van hit."

Jenna held out a limp hand and forced a smile. "Hello."

Bobby nodded stiffly in return, not shaking her hand and keeping his distance from her beside. "Nice to meet you." The tone of his voice suggested otherwise. "I'm sorry about that." He motioned to the bandages around her ribs.

Jenna was at a loss as to why he was apologizing, but before she could ask, Green cut in. "Mr. Mercer here—" Bobby scoffed at the formality of the statement, but Green ignored him. "—Is helping us with leads as to who the men were who mistakenly shot at his younger brother, Jack."

Apparently Green thought Jenna hadn't witnessed the entire shootout, and she was shocked at the cop's willingness to lie to her. Bobby didn't seem to be buying Green's bullshit story either, and he immediately interrupted.

"_Mistakenly?_" he exclaimed incredulously, his face a mask of rage. "What planet are you on, Green? We already explained to you that Sweet—"

Turning to face the enraged Mercer, Green cut Bobby off sharply, his façade of patience gone. "Damn it, Bobby, do you _want_ to drag another innocent bystander into this mess you've caused?" he hissed quietly. "She doesn't need to know about your feud with Sweet. Understood?"

There it was, that name again—Sweet. Jenna silently wondered how one man could cause so many problems to so many people, and immediately decided that she didn't want to be the next one to find out.

Bobby snorted derisively. "Innocent bystander… you buy that shit, Green? How do you know she wasn't working for Sweet?"

As the tone of his voice escalated, Jenna glanced up at the accusations flying her way. Struggling to keep her anger in check, she said, "Look buddy, I don't know what you're been told, but I'm not… 'working for' anybody, Sweet or otherwise. Okay?"

"Why the fuck were you there, then?" Bobby rounded on her next, close to shouting. Jenna, shocked by the harshness in his voice, didn't know how to respond; she mouthed wordlessly for several seconds before Green answered for her.

"Bobby," he warned in a foreboding undertone, "You just need to calm down—"

"Calm down? My little brother is dying in a hospital bed down the hall, Green! I need answers, and you and your fucking partner aren't doing a damn thing!"

Jenna had run out of patience, both with the cops and the enraged stranger who apparently thought the woes and concerns of his little brother were more severe than Jenna's, even though they had both been injured in a shootout that had nothing to do with either of them.

Her struggles to sit upright had caught the attention of her three unwelcome guests, which saved Jenna the effort of shouting. "If you would like to argue with each other," she hissed in a hoarse voice that sounded more sickly than angry, "You are free to do so, but not in my room! I answered your questions, officer, but under the pretense that I wasn't going to be verbally attacked by—"

Before she actually got around to asking them all to kindly fuck off home, a nurse came bustling into the room, a startled look on her face. Her mousy expression turned sour when she noticed her patient's intruders.

"Pardon me, but Miss Sharpe needs to take her medication and rest, as she suffered slight trauma to her head—"

Bobby stormed out of the room before the nurse had time to finish; he pushed past her, and the woman huffed angrily and glared at the two police officers as though it ought to be a crime for being such an asshole. Green quietly apologized for the eldest Mercer's brash actions to the nurse before thanking Jenna once more.

When Green and Fowler took their leave, Jenna visibly relaxed, slumping against the pillows in an attempt to be comfortable. The nurse checked her vitals, administered a fresh dose of medicine to the IV sticking from her forearm, muttered something about Jenna being more careful when she was driving and how Detroit cops only working half-assed at their jobs before leaving to see her next patient.

After the nurse finished her checkup, Jenna was left to occupy herself in a bland room that still reminded her uncomfortably of a detainee's. Pushing lank strands of hair from her face, she watched the slow _drip, drip_ of the medicine in her IV tube, wondering vaguely if each drop was stealing bits and pieces of her life away or if, somehow, it was slowly giving it all back to her.


	3. Scars and Souvenirs

**Chapter 3:** Scars and Souvenirs

_I can see it in your eyes,  
A look as if your hero fell and lost his soul_

Jenna's stay in the hospital was rather brief for someone involved in a neighborhood shootout slash car wreck. However, she suspected money changed hands; the day after she was admitted, the doctors told her they had received a call from her father, who had generously requested that he pay all of her insurance bills.

Jenna didn't believe the charade for a second.

Just because his pretty blonde girlfriend had a rich daddy who gave her the world—and someone else's husband, for that matter—on a silver platter didn't mean Jenna's father didn't flaunt it when he could. They hadn't spoken since Jenna found out he was sleeping around, but his vain attempts to keep in contact only pushed her further away.

He'd also sent her a hand-me-down car to replace her Buick, which had been damaged beyond repair in the crash. Jenna was against taking charity from the likes of her father, but in this matter she didn't have much of a choice. Unless she wanted to hitchhike.

So, a week after her life had nearly ended at her own hands—she still felt like an idiot, driving through the neighborhood in search of a small piece of happiness, and look where it had gotten her—Jenna found herself back on the streets. Without a job, she couldn't afford to pay the rent on her apartment, couldn't afford food, couldn't afford the weed she had been craving since the crash.

Jenna smiled cruelly. Life could be ironic sometimes.

After going through a rather lengthy checkout process—Jenna wondered if it was because the doctor had noticed traces of illegal substances in her system, but luckily the issue hadn't been brought up—Jenna walked out of the hospital, feeling no better than she had going in. The small cuts and lacerations on her arms were uncovered, but she wore a small brace under her shirt, wrapped around her cracked ribs.

She removed it as soon as she arrived at the apartment. It only felt like a weight that was holding her down, making her run in place.

After a well-needed shower, she changed into a simple pair of faded jeans and black sweater, straightened her choppy black hair, and headed back outside. Somehow, the shootout had left Jenna with the oddly hopeful feeling that this was her second chance to get her life back on track. The first item on the mental list in her head that she had appropriately titled "Operation: Get your fucking life out of the gutter" was to find a new job.

Jenna pulled her car down a road that led through downtown Detroit, looking for a promising place to start. After making several trips around the block, struggling to convince herself to avoid going down the side street where she so frequently bought her weed, Jenna spotted a quaint little convenience store on the corner of 104th street. She parked her call in front of the store and walked inside.

Her entrance was preceded by the chime of a bell, and Jenna approached the counter, where another employee sat.

"Hello." Jenna greeted as warmly as she could to the plump, balding man sitting behind the counter. "I was wondering if you had any job applications available for me to fill out."

The man looked up at her and smiled kindly. "Yes, of course you can," he exclaimed with a thick middle-Eastern accent. "Come in, come in, let me find one for you."

"Thank you so much," Jenna stated in a falsely cheery voice, but the man didn't seem to notice as he began to sift through stacks of papers and receipts that had been piled up under the counter. He grumbled and muttered to himself before emerging with an envelope, stuffed with an array of work-related forms.

"Give a minute, I am unsure where she kept them…" The storeowner stated, his tone suddenly lacking its former optimism. He sighed dully and glanced up at Jenna, as if he felt the need to explain his disarray to her.

"We just lost our manager a couple weeks ago," he stated sadly, his thick accent barely discernible as he choked back tears. "Two robbers came in and murdered her and another employee. Terrible… it was such a shock…"

His eyes strayed down the counter, where a picture frame had been propped against the wall. It depicted an elderly woman with white hair and a friendly smile, with the words 'Evelyn Mercer' written neatly underneath.

The last name sounded vaguely familiar to Jenna, like a sensation or long-forgotten memory that sat unvisited in the corners of her mind. She stared at the frame that symbolized all that remained of Evelyn Mercer before shrugging the thought aside.

Forgetting her manners, Jenna bowed her head respectfully. "I'm very sorry to hear that, sir... If you'd like, I can come back another time."

The storeowner seemed to come back to his senses. "Oh, of course not… I am sorry," he chuckled with an airy wave of his hand, which magically held the sought-after application. "I should not burden you with the troubles of a stranger. Come, come." He ushered her around the counter. "I will see what I can do about you getting hired. You can fill out the application here."

Jenna almost wished she could shrug off all the unhappiness that constantly weighed on her shoulders as easily as this man had. However, she kept her thoughts to herself as she sat down behind the counter, took the pen the offered to her, and set to work on getting things right for a change.

A few minutes and several lines into her résumé, Jenna heard the front door open with the chime of a bell. Several sets of footsteps echoed around the empty store, but Jenna didn't bother to look up as she heard the manager call out a friendly greeting from the back.

"Ah boys, you are back. Did you have any luck with the tapes and information I gave you last time?"

"Almost a little too much luck, Rashed. Did you give the video to the cops?"

"Of course…"

The heavy footsteps and voices of the visitors faded away. Not one for eavesdropping, Jenna tuned them out and concentrated her attention on coming up with three reliable references for her application.

She had just been considering putting down Bill Gates as a prospective reference—after all, the man knew little about her nasty history and her fatal attraction to weed, something most of the people she knew would readily share with others—when Jenna heard the voices of the visitors grow louder as they approached the front of the store.

A gruff voice stated, "...Sweet's goonies paid us a visit last week at mom's old place. They sent Jack to the fucking hospital, and despite what you might still think, the shootings that took place here weren't random."

The man's voice trailed off. When he spoke up again, his tone was angry. "Damn it, Rashed. Why the hell did you put that there?"

Jenna glanced up as a man passed her by along the counter, snatching up Evelyn Mercer's picture frame as he did so.

"I don't think it's necessary to advertise to your customers about what happened here. Understand?"

Jenna couldn't tolerate useless people, and for an instant, she forgot her place as the prospective employee. "Hey," she snapped at the older man, "He was only trying to be respectful to that woman. Give him a break."

"Really?" The man turned to glare at her, Evelyn's fame still clutched in his hands. He brandished it briefly in the air, as if to use it like a martyr. "Tell that to my mother."

Suddenly, the deceased woman's last name became recognizable to Jenna. She recalled Sergeant Green's statement to her in the hospital: _We're here on behalf of the Mercer brothers and the shootout that occurred in front of their house yesterday afternoon._

Jenna didn't know what shocked her more: the fact that she had just said something incredibly rude to a man who'd just lost his mother, or the fact that said man was the same one who confronted her in the hospital.

Bobby Mercer looked different, somehow; the faded, faraway look he had worn previously was gone, replaced by a firm resolve that bordered on manic. His hair was slicked back neatly, and the dark circles around his eyes were gone. However, that didn't make him look any less angry.

The store owner, Rashed, stepped in between them before any more words could be exchanged. "It's alright. Bobby, if you'd like, I'll remove the frame and—"

Bobby cut him off in mid-sentence, stepping around the man to get a better look at Jenna. "Hold up. You're the girl Green wanted me to speak to in the hospital." He pointed an accusing finger at her. "How the fuck did you get off clean, huh?"

Jenna bristled at his harsh words, but instead she tried to be sympathetic. "Look… I'm really sorry about your mom. But whatever went down at your house the other day… I didn't have any part in it."

"Bobby... leave it alone, man." One of the other customers spoke, and Jenna glanced over his shoulder as the man approached the counter. He was ebon-skinned, with a thin goatee and sporting casual overalls and a hat. He also pushed a wheelchair in front of him, navigating its occupant carefully through the aisles.

Jenna couldn't help but stare. The boy sitting in the wheelchair was the same one she had been get shot on his own front yard. With the extent of his injuries, Jenna had presumed him dead; apparently however, the boy was stronger than he let on. Jenna wondered if it would be rude to ask him how he did it; how he could find the will to survive such an ordeal. God knew she needed to be that kind of person.

Before she could ask, however, the overall-clad man smiled apologetically, leaning over the counter to shake Jenna's hand. "I'm Jeremiah." He gave the wheelchair a playful kick with his foot, sending it rolling away. "This here's Jack; not that you can see much of him past the bandages." He chuckled, and Jenna glanced over the counter curiously as the boy in the wheelchair gave her a halfhearted wave.

"Nice to meet you." Jack winced as he spoke, as though any simple movements caused him pain. Jenna smiled back halfheartedly. He was attractive, she supposed; or as attractive as someone could be encased in bandages. His left arm was in a sling and gauze was wrapped around his messy brown hair, giving him a disheveled appearance. His leg had been similarly tended to, and it was propped up in the footrest of the wheelchair.

Jack looked like he'd been through hell, and the blank look in his eyes suggested he wouldn't be returning anytime soon.

"Don't pick on Jack, man," a deep voice spoke up from the doorway, interrupting Jenna's thoughts. "I'd be pissed too if I couldn't jack off anymore." He motioned to the boy's bandaged left arm with a chuckle.

Jenna couldn't believe she hadn't noticed the fourth man until he had spoken; he was huge and very well-built, she could see that much through his white t-shirt. He was clean-shaven head and had a tattoo wrapped around his forearm; he came off as foreboding but gentle, and his dark eyes were never void of a cheerful glint that covered up his otherwise demeaning appearance.

"Shut up, Angel," Jack shot back weakly, as scathingly as he could.

Angel. What a fitting name.

Rashed seemed startled by the four visitors' nonchalant attitude in front of other customers in his store, but his chastising words were lost on Jenna's ears as she turned back to her application, doing her best to ignore Bobby, the apparent asshole of the family, and Jack, in whose eyes she could see so much of herself.

However, when Jenna glanced down at her résumé, she was surprised to find her hands trembling. _Damn._ She cursed herself for being an idiot of an addict—everyone thinks it can't happen to them, that they won't get addicted, and can stop whenever they damn well please. Jenna was no different; however, apparently the withdrawals were making her tremble uncontrollably. _Great first impression, Jenna,_ she chided herself mentally.

Bobby interpreted Jenna's shaking hands as a sign of weakness; that she was afraid of him. He sneered. "Not talking so big now that your fuck buddies are gone, huh?" he spat coldly, referring to the two cops who had spoke with Jenna and Bobby in the hospital.

Jenna didn't say anything. She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt, feeling oddly embarrassed. Obviously this man wasn't the kind of person to let grudges go lightly.

"That's enough, Bobby," Rashed stated quietly. "I think you and your brothers ought to leave now... you're disrupting the customers."

Bobby laughed sardonically, but he didn't argue. "Let's go." He waved his companions out the door, and they left without argument.

Rashed's statement intrigued Jenna, and she stole one last glance at the motley crew of four men who stepped out of the store. They were different in so many ways, from skin color, to attitudes, down to the way they handled themselves, but they seemed to be connected by so much more than just blood. It was obvious to her now that they must have been adopted, and she looked over once more at the framed memory of Evelyn Mercer.

Sick of feeling tired of herself, Jenna quickly finished filling out her application and left. Somehow, the pain she had seen in Jack's eyes followed her all the way home.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Rashed is the man who, in the movie, tells Angel the suspected shooter looked like Ben Wallice. As far as I know, he didn't have a name then, so I gave him one.


End file.
